Percival's Planet: A Novel

Summary

In 1928, the boy who will discover Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, is on the family farm, grinding a lens for his own telescope under the immense Kansas sky. In Flagstaff, Arizona, the staff of Lowell Observatory is about to resume the late Percival Lowell's interrupted search for Planet X. Meanwhile, the immensely rich heir to a chemical fortune has decided to go west to hunt for dinosaurs, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the most beautiful girl in America is going slowly insane while her ex-heavyweight champion boyfriend stands by helplessly, desperate to do anything to keep her.

Inspired by the true story of Tombaugh and set in the last gin-soaked months of the flapper era, Percival's Planet tells the story of the intertwining lives of half a dozen dreamers, schemers, and madmen. Following Tombaugh's unlikely path from son of a farmer to discoverer of a planet, the novel touches on insanity, mathematics, music, astrophysics, boxing, dinosaur hunting, shipwrecks-and what happens when the greatest romance of your life is also the source of your life's greatest sorrow.

Reviews

There were times when I thought this book would never end, but it did, and then I almost felt like I wanted a little more. I did the audio edition and I was frequently disappointed in the narration. I'd like to find something else he did and try that, to know if it was just this book, or if I need to avoid him, period. Some of the portrayals of the characters were a little too much for me - I don't need huge distinctions from one to another to follow a story as a rule. And it really can impact your feelings about a character if you cringe every time he or she speaks. The story was just great at times, but not wholly consistent. I think I admire it perhaps a little more that I liked it, if that makes sense. This was truly an odd assortment of people, and the author took a lot of time and effort to connect some to the main plot. Some parts I found to be quite unique, especially with regard to Mary's illness and finish to Felix's story. I would recommend it to those who are not put off by things that develop slowly.

Clyde Tombaugh is the man who discovered Pluto. This book is the fictious true story about his discovery. Clyde begins the book as an old man telling his story to a bunch of amateur astronomers. He has told this story a thousand times before, however nearing the end of his life he wonders if it is time to tell the true story behind the discovery of the planet.

Allow me to summarise the true story, do not be afraid of any spoilers for the only spoiler is that the true story is boring.

A farmhand and amateur astronomer, Clyde, for reasons that are never explained has been making telescopes using techniques that are explained, but not understood by me, to sell to a relativie who buys them for reasons unknown to the farmhand. He is saving to go to college and must get a job. He writes to an observatory and asks for advice, and is offered a job. His job is to compare slides to try and spot moving objects in the sky. He does this for months. He finds the planet. The end.

Initially I enjoyed the book. I liked the first couple of characters introduced and I liked the writing style. It reminded me of Hemingway in the frugalness of the words. It made me realise I have been reading too much crap lately.

However the more I read the less I felt connect to the book. The stories and the characters seemed to become less and less relevent. There was the wife of the man who worked with the man who worked with Clyde before Clyde arrived, she was a mathematician and also interested in finding the planet. There was the ex-lover (and the ex-lover's lover and ex-lover's housekeeper and the brother and the brother's gay lover) of the woman who married the man who worked with Clyde. There was the mother of the man, who was rich but flighty, who was able to marry together the man who worked with the man who worked with Cylde with the mathematician.

I feel like I am reading the story that Jack built. Each of these characters deviated more and more from Clyde. They all had very interesting and colourful stories but they just did not have anything to do with Clyde and his discovery of the planet Pluto. I liked the story of Clyde and want to read more about him. When I think back over the book there was very little about him in it at all. Every time a new interesting character was introduced the chapter would switch and change focus to another character. In a sort of reverse logic the most appealing and interesting characters seemed to have the least amount of time devoted to them.

I finished the book completely bewildered. What did all these people have to do with Clyde... or Percival for that matter?

This book was a disappointment to me, but it is not exactly the author's fault -- I requested the book thinking it was nonfiction. As historical fiction it did not work for me -- I could not correlate the fictional Tombaugh with the historical figure. In general, I think it is a mistake to write fiction about recent historical figures, unless is it satire. Too much is known about the protagonist to give the author room for imagination.

Percival's Planet is a fictionalization of the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. This is more historically inspired fiction than historical fiction. This is inevitable, since there is nothing dramatic about spending months flipping through star fields on a blink comparator.Many of the characters we find in Percival's Planet are thus entirely fictional, although I could imagine that people like them wandered about Flagstaff in the 1930s. Byers says he based Alan and Mary Barber on his grandparents. Although Barber did not actually work at Lowell, I enjoyed the details of Barber's work on the calculation of the orbit of Planet X. It is hard to appreciate the incredible amount of work that went into calculations before the term computer meant a machine instead of a person. The description of the work involved in grinding a lens by hand was also fascinating. It is amazing what you can accomplish with grit and hard work [and incredible attention to detail].I am a sucker for any book that even features Flagstaff, and here we have one that is largely set in Flagstaff. There are some liberties with the topography as well as with the people, but the gist is pretty good. It is fun to walk around town and imagine what it was like in 1930.If you want something that sticks closely to the facts, this book is not it. It was not really my style, but I did enjoy the book. And in my heart, Pluto will always be a planet.

"Percival's Planet" centers on the 1930 discovery of the elusive "Planet X," a planet long suspected to exist, but one very difficult to photograph using the technology of the day. "Planet X" would come to be known as Pluto, and the Kansas farm boy who discovered it would gain worldwide fame for finally locating it. Ironically, Pluto would go on to lose its status as a planet in late 2006 when the definition of "planet" was officially written and Pluto failed to meet the new standard. In reality, however, "Percival's Planet" is about much more than the discovery of Pluto. Michael Byers does center his story on young Clyde Tombaugh, the ultimate discoverer of the new planet, but he uses several interesting side plots to develop the other characters that will find themselves in Flagstaff when Clyde finds success there. These characters include Alan Barber and Dick Morrow, two young men who precede Clyde's arrival at the Lowell Observatory, and Florence, the girl both men fall in love with; Edward Howe, a retired boxer that falls in love with his mentally ill secretary; Felix Duprie and his mother, wealthy Easterners that move to Arizona in search of dinosaur bones; and the eccentric widow of Percival Lowell, founder of the observatory, and a man who spent much of his life in search of Planet X. Byers spends a good bit of time (and numerous pages) developing each of his subplots and supporting characters, something he can afford to do in a novel of more than 400 pages. The reader comes to know most of the main characters in their more natural habitats prior to their arrival in Flagstaff for purposes of their own. Despite their varied backgrounds, and individual pursuits, Byers builds a web in which these characters plausibly interact with each other to a degree that makes Pluto's discovery read almost an afterthought. When, near the end of the book, the planet is finally discovered, in fact, it is somewhat a letdown because the reader's anticipation of the event is sure to exceed the impact of the author's description of the discovery's aftermath. Clyde Tombaugh's personal story is an amazing one in itself. Clyde, son of a tenant farmer, had a keen interest in telescopes, even to manufacturing fine lenses of his own on the farm, but he could not afford to go to college after finishing high school. A chance letter would bring him to the attention of the Lowell Observatory director at precisely the moment a staff opening unexpectedly occurred and, much to his surprise, Clyde would be invited to fill that opening. And after receiving minimal on-the-job training on the observatory's equipment, the young man barely out of high school virtually would be left on his own to search for the mysterious Planet X. "Percival's Planet" is an interesting peek at Depression era America and an assortment of characters trying to find their place in society just when times were becoming difficult - and it offers an intriguing look at the discovery of the used-to-be planet, Pluto. For all that, it does not work quite as well as it should because so many of the novel's characters cross the line from believable into unbelievable, making it difficult for the reader to lose himself in the story being told. Rated at: 3.0

Percival’s Planet is a wonderful book. Michael Byers takes us back to a time when astronomy was as exciting to a nation as space exploration is today. Kansas farmboy Clyde Tombaugh teaches himself how to make a telescope and in doing so gains the attention of the director at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He and others at Lowell are trying to prove founder Percy Lowell’s theory that a Planet X exists at the outer limits of the solar system. And it is through their efforts that Pluto is discovered in 1930.But Percival’s Planet is more than the story of Clyde Tombaugh. Byers juggles several story lines orbiting around the central theme of the discovery of Pluto. Harvard astronomer Alan Barber searches also for Planet X and brings his beautiful wife, Mary, to the desert along with the madness that is haunting her. And Felix DuPrie, heir to a business fortune, finds his true calling in exploring for dinosaurs in the Arizona desert. Each story is lovingly portrayed and juxtaposed with the other stories in a satisfying solar system of its own. Highly recommended.

After a lumbering start, this story came together to be a convincing and entertaining fictionalized account of the discovery of Pluto by a motley crew of characters. I found some of the writing of Mary's madness so fantastic to be distracting, and the mathematical details to be extraneous for a book of general fiction. Despite those criticisms, I'd recommend the book to those who appreciate historical fiction and particularly to anyone who values the sacrifices that people of science make for the sake of discovery.

Percival Lowell dreamed of finding the ninth planet in our solar system, Planet X. After his death, and a lengthy court battle with his widow, Lowell Observatory continued the search. This is the story of four people whose lives come together at the observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Clyde Tombaugh, a Kansas farm boy and amateur astronomer. Alan Barber a mathematician and astronomer from Harvard. Felix DuPre a rich dinosaur hunter. Mary Hempstead a beautiful mentally unstable young woman. Each one finds their destiny intertwined with this elusive planet.Finding Planet X is only a subplot to the novel. The character's lives take prominence. We learn about their backround; family members, social class, lovers. In the "Author's Note" Byers acknowledges that most of the story is fictitious except for the actual recorded events in the lives of those working at Lowell Observatory. The exaggerations in the story help to make it a more enjoyable read. I cared about what happened to the characters and that kept me reading the story. This is an engaging, well written novel.

This book was a highly enjoyable read, with interesting characters and settings revolving around the search for Planet X (the formerly known as a planet Pluto). The plot, based on a search for something that we all know was found, still managed to hold my attention despite knowing the end point. Most of all, though, I really liked the writing - his descriptions of Arizona in particular were very evocative, and did an excellent job of pulling me into the book's landscape. The language got a bit florid at times for my taste, but the book was full of so many descriptive details that I could forgive even that.

An excellent novel on so many levels. It tells the story of the discovery of the planet Pluto, from the viewpoint of the people involved and their friends and family. The characters revolve around and influence each other in much the same way that the planets revolve and perturb each others orbits. The characters are real, interesting, and varied. Several times I was surprised by their actions, only to realize in retrospect that the author had done an excellent job steering their behavior.The plot, most of which takes place in 1929-1930, is framed by a beginning and ending in the current time, which was also well done. The beginning sets the stage (literally) and gets the reader engaged in the story and anxious to find out what really happened.Highly recommended.